ile, for
the Negroes are eminently distinguished by their good treatment of all
animals. Their wealth consists in land and cattle; their dwellings are
generally of reeds, their beds are mats made of _Asouman_ (maranta juncea)
and leopards' skins; and their cloathing broad pieces of cotton. The women
take care of the children, pound the millet, and prepare the food; the men
cultivate the land, go a hunting and fishing, weave the stuff for their
clothes, and gather in the wax.

Revenge and idleness seem to be the only vices of these people; their
virtues are charity, hospitality, sobriety, and love of their children. The
young women are licentious, but the married women are generally chaste and
attached to their husbands. Their diseases among the children, are worms,
and umbilical hernia; among the old people, and particularly those who have
travelled much, blindness and opthalamia; and among the adult, affections
of the heart, obstructions, sometimes leprosy, and rarely elephantiasis.
Among the whole population of the Peninsula, there is only one person with
a hunch back, and two or three who are lame. During the day they work or
rest; but the night is reserved for dancing and conversation. As soon as
the sun has set, the tambourine is heard, the women sing; the whole
population is animated; love and the ball set every body in motion.
"_Africa dances all the night_," is an expression which has become
proverbial among the Europeans who have travelled there.

There is not an atom of calcareous stone in the whole country: almost all
the plants are twisted and thorny. The Monbins are the only species of
timber that are met with. The thorny asparagus, A. retrofractus, is found
in abundance in the woods; it tears the clothes, and the centaury of Egypt
pricks the legs. The most troublesome insects of the neighbourhood are
gnats, bugs, and ear-wigs. The monkey, called cynocephalus, plunders the
harvests, the vultures attack the sick animals, the striped hyoena and the
leopard prowl about the villages during the night; but the cattle are
extremely beautiful, and the fish make the sea on this coast boil, and foam
by their extraordinary numbers. The hare of the Cape and the gazell are
frequently met with. The porcupines, in the moulting season, cast their
quills in the fields, and dig themselves holes under the palm trees. The
guinea-fowl (Pintada), the turtle-dove, the wood-pigeon are found every
where. In winter immense flocks of